A reader wrote via email, privately:
For some weeks/months, I had the feeling you’d taken your blog out behind the proverbial woodshed, and, with the ubiquitous/mythological/hypothetical .22, put it out of its misery. I’m glad it’s now resuscitated and more interesting that ever.
See, I don't own a gun, and I would never shoot a...beached whale? Dumb animal? Helpless kitten? The correct metaphor is not occurring to my brain.
It's just that this enterprise requires constant nursing and vigilant oversight, and I was called away for a spell. But never ye fear, TOP yet lives!
Mike
(Thanks to Larry Manuel, quoted by permission)
P.S. And actually, there's an object lesson in this. If you're one of the many people who have kindly, courteously, and convivially invited me to do one of the many many other things I've been invited to do, from joining groups to giving lectures to traveling to distant cities to writing forewords for books to contributing to existing magazines to leading workshops to participating in panels to attending events (and all those have happened, and more), well, in these past few months you've seen what will happen if I were actually to accept those kind offers and go off and do all those things...TOP would just nosedive is all. The plain fact is, when the world is arright I live a dull existence behind the glowing glass wall, but you have me right where you want me; it is as the oracle said: "The blogger must blog" (paraphrasing! You know the Internet never gets quotations right). I'm just sayin'.
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Ha, I was feeling the same thing, and glad that things have been starting to roll again. You write a good blog, sir, when your head is in it. I hope it stays so for some time ahead...
Posted by: Ben | Wednesday, 12 November 2014 at 01:49 PM
I'm so happy The Online Photographer exists! And you are wrong that you are not a teacher!
Posted by: Simon Griffee | Wednesday, 12 November 2014 at 02:48 PM
If you would never shoot an animal I hope you don't run into a rabid skunk or raccoon. We have too many of them here in North Dakota at times and shoot them for safety.
Do you have any problem with killing mosquitoes, mice or rats?
Posted by: Dan | Wednesday, 12 November 2014 at 03:12 PM
Don't shoot a beached whale!
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/french-authorities-in-race-to-dispose-of-beached-whale-carcass-amid-fears-it-could-explode-9856211.html
Posted by: Chuck Albertson | Wednesday, 12 November 2014 at 08:22 PM
I still miss the Morning Coffee posts, though...
Posted by: Stephen Scharf | Thursday, 13 November 2014 at 12:54 AM
It's a soaring golden eagle of a blog surely?
Posted by: Patrick Dodds | Thursday, 13 November 2014 at 03:10 AM
After reading this I no longer want to write a successful blog - - sounds like way too much work.
[It's an amazing amount of work, when I'm doing it right. And yet, I get rewards back for it all the time, and I'm very grateful to be connected to so many thoughtful, generous, experienced people from all over the world, and to have the gift of their thoughts and opinions. It's a great experience and if it ended tomorrow I wouldn't have wanted to do anything else with the past decade or so. --Mike]
Posted by: Dave | Thursday, 13 November 2014 at 08:12 AM